Saddam Hussein for President

In the most repulsively cynical attempt to reelect a president for
all the wrong reasons since ... well, since the last Persian Gulf
unpleasantness, Bill Clinton is doing his conscienceless, bloodthirsty
damnedest to whip up another phony conflict with Iraqui dictator and
Ernie Kovacs lookalike, Saddam Hussein.
Meanwhile, as usual -- exactly as they did in Viet Nam -- all
Republicans can do is whimper "I don't think our response was strong
enough." Response to what? To a nation's vain attempt to recover
its sovereignty within its own borders? (And how would Bob Dole react
to being told that, as a result of our imperialism against, say,
Mexico, the United States Air Force will no longer be allowed to fly
its planes south of the Mason-Dixon Line?) To Iraq's desire to defend
itself against an occupying super-power? To Clinton's Nixonian stab at
electioneering by showering the citizens of another country with
guided missiles?
It would appear that war is the health of Bill Clinton. His actual
poll numbers (as opposed to what his campaign staff, the American mass
media choose to tell us) must really be something to behold. This kind
of thing is usually the last move of a desperate encumbent. Or maybe
it's just part of the litter of dead bodies he and his vile wife seem
to leave behind them wherever they go.
Careless Bill. Messy Hillary.
Careless Hillary. Messy Bill.
Will the American people fall for this guff? They certainly always
have in the past. All it takes is a magical wave of a bloody shirt.
That's how we ended up (even under the most charitable historic
interpretation) with the War of 1812, the Spanish American War, World
War I, World War II, Korea, and Viet Nam. The war in Viet Nam that
Bill Clinton is supposed to have opposed in the 1960s.
As for today, well, to be perfectly honest, the picture is pretty
frigging bleak. This was, after all, never the brightest electorate in
the world, and a century of public education hasn't helped things any.
Those among them who didn't vote for Clinton last time around, voted
for George Bush. Duh. And those who didn't vote for Bush, voted for
Perot. Double duh. Even the best and brightest of the lot seem to have
gone Rush Limbaugh one better and put half their brain in a blender.
Politically sophisticated gun owners have apparently decided that they
would rather be enslaved by Republicans than set free by Libertarians.
And Libertarians have nominated Harry Browne.
That's too bad. It's too bad for America. It's too bad for
history. It's too bad for individual liberty. It's too bad for the
human race. What we need most, presidentially, right now, is James
Stewart. What we've got now is Jim Carrey.
What we've got is "Dumb" with "Dumber" waiting in the wings.
With the exception of Browne, none of these guys is even bringing
up real issues. What do we need with a war on drugs? We know who the
bigtime drug pushers are: George Bush and the Central Intelligence
Agency, while Arkansas governor William Jefferson Blythe Clinton
looked the other way -- "Do this little favor for us, will you, Bill,
and pretty soon we'll let you be the President."
What do we need with anti-terrorism legislation? We know who the
real terrorists are: after all, we watched Bill Clinton and Janet
Reno burn 22 children to death -- along with their parents -- in broad
daylight on national TV.
What do we need with a faceoff with Iraq? We know who the real
butchers are. They're the ones who defecated on everything this
country is supposed to stand for by giving medals to the terrorists
who murdered Vicky and Sammy Weaver.
Where's Simon Wiesenthal when you really need him?
As for the media, remember, this is the pond-scum that pressured a
state government into dismissing and punishing a Pennsylvania road
repair crew for the "crime" of paving over the carcass of a dead deer
-- while they themselves are still paving over the corpses of their
favorite President's mass murder victims.
Waco Willie may have inadvertantly gotten us out of one dilemma,
however. Here it is only a few weeks before the general election and I
still haven't decided which of these slavering mental and moral
cripples I'm going to vote against.
I'm considering, however, a choice which will allow me to register
extreme dissatisfaction with the Democrats' having offered me a
pustulent human cancer for president, the Republicans' having offered
me a specimen of the undead, the Reform Party's having offered me
anybody at all, let alone the Nacogdoches Napoleon, and the
Libertarian Party's having jammed a smalltime conman down my throat.
It'll also give me a chance to protest Waco Willie's unspeakably
evil and self-serving foreign policy. I'm thinking about writing in
"Saddam Hussein": at least it's one way to find out exactly how secret
our secret ballot really is.

L. Neil Smith's award-winning first novel, The Probability Broach,
long out of print, has just been republished by TOR Books. A complete
list of his novels and collection of his essays and other data may be
found on the World Wide Web at
http://www.lneilsmith.org//. Permission to
redistribute this article is herewith granted by the author, provided
that it is reproduced unedited, in its entirety, and appropriate
credit given.

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Enterprise, Number 16, October 15, 1996.